


Fractures

by PeculiarlyEmpty



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Chloe is just confused, Eldritch, F/F, Lovecraftian, Max is utterly insane, Maybe-Romance?, Nostalgia, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeculiarlyEmpty/pseuds/PeculiarlyEmpty
Summary: Max flees the end of Universe, and Chloe tags along behind her.
Relationships: Chloe Price (Life Is Strange)/Other(s), Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Steph Gingrich/Chloe Price
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Encore

Flight

A spider’s web of insane fractures spins out from her clenched fist as Max flees the anathema at the end of this universe. *Blink* and everything is gone, the blackness of space void of time and meaning. The pinprick that becomes the birth of a trillion stars as conflagration ignites the cosmos in the fires of meaning and purpose. *Blink* and she’s returned, the woody, pine scent of Arcadia and the laughter of good company, a feeling of humanity eroded after untold centuries of isolation yet she still finds time to smell the metaphorical roses. Once more into the breach…

Eddies in the current, ripples in the patterns of time. There are always changes, minute and subtle but growing larger as the fractures tear open once more. With a wave of her hand, Max can obliterate the masterwork of the gods; yet there are always consequences. The blue haired one is speaking again, her lips move in silent spasmodic motion, the words like bright birds flitting around her. She silently wrestles with her humanity, degrading herself enough to appreciate this moment. She slowly tunes into the words, the crackle of static fading into words, into feelings. Max has returned, but for how long?

\--

The girl before her blinks once and Chloe recognizes something odd. Her eyes changed in that moment, the youthful excitement evaporated in the fractional moment in which she told her joke, already forgotten. “Woah, hey dude are you alright?” Her voice resounds in the suddenly empty air, as if even the birds have departed this place. 

The Max before her was not the Max with which she had been laughing a second before, that Chloe was certain of. The junkyard suddenly felt almost haunted in the way it loomed up around them and despite Chloe’s certainty that this _was_ her friend; she still felt apprehension, although about what she could not say. She did not want to admit it, but whatever her friend was, whatever had taken her place _scared_ Chloe, the way the yawning chasm makes you weak in the knees. 

Max cocked her head, the subtle tell of incomprehension and Chloe had time to blink and say “Max, whaa…?” Then the universe tore and Max was gone, the shards of glass that was her life falling away. Chloe reached out into the empty air, and even as she could feel things crawling through the holes where the universe was tearing itself apart; things that _hunted,_ things that _shouldn’t_ be here, Chloe reached into the void where her friend used to be and pulled herself after. Into what she couldn’t say, but as the kaleidoscope of color whirled before her, she only knew one thing and that was she would help her friend no matter the cost. 

Chapter 1, fragments of the eternal being

The monochrome fades into color and into life, a canvas unfolding before her eyes and she experiences creation. She is sitting in an audience, their faces without meaning to her. Before her is a stage bathed in the orange glow of floodlights, as the actors – their faces covered in a sheen of sweat in the late summer heat—perform their function for the exultation of their peers. Chloe blinks and stands up, the cursing of another girl behind her falling upon ears that did not care a whit. “ _Was that real?_ ” She thought, remembering the resonance of that place between stars. “ _What happened to Max if I’m here?_ ” She pushed her way out of the isle of folding chairs and their fleshy counterparts. 

She remembered this place now, _The Tempest,_ Rachel Amber and that night she’d never forget. Except perhaps she had, as she distinctly remembered herself being there, on that stage, losing herself in Rachel’s eyes. Some piece of her felt a thrill at being back in time, but the terror of those many-legged monstrosities, the _thing_ that had sent them turned her blood to ice water. 

Desperately she turned back and forth; looking for the girl that simply vanished, the molten outline of her form the vehicle for Chloe’s journey to this place. She remembered dripping _pieces_ of shattered causality, the echo of a voice that made no sound. 

The note that formed as everything that ever was died around her. 

Someone caught her shoulder, and Chloe was certain that she’d jumped out of her skin and floated away. “Christ, silly, it’s just me.” Steph, the colorful lesbian, she remembered kissing her beneath the bleachers once upon a time. “Steph, what’s going on? _What the fuck is happening?_ ” Chloe’s voice took on a panicked note and Steph looked at her with an almost tender concern. “Hey, are you okay? Really, Chloe, like, I know Rachel’s good and all, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost or some shit.”

For a moment, Chloe simply said nothing, noting the other girl’s hand on her shoulder. _Really_ noticed how close her body was to Chloe’s own, which now, she realized was dressed in a fucking summer dress. _A fucking dress?_ Chloe ran her hands with rising terror over her hair, which reached past her shoulders. A cursory examination showed it wasn’t dyed in the slightest. “Jesus fuck, Steph--” Steph blinked, nonplussed at Chloe’s language,

“—No, sorry, but what the fuck? Have you seen Max Caufield?” The other girl’s gaze was more concerned than ever: “Babe, um, who the hell is that? Also, I thought you hated bad language – some shit about a swear jar, and an allowance? Never mind, are you okay? Really, you’re starting to scare me – Victoria didn’t spot you something before the show, did she?”

Chloe in a rush, felt all strength leave her and she collapsed to her knees in the grass. A gust of wind stirred her _long_ (!) hair and she looked at her non-tattooed, non-scarred arms before her. A creeping dread accompanied the realization that something was _very_ wrong. Chloe had witnessed something she couldn’t explain, Max had tugged her along on some amusement ride for the incorrigibly insane, and she was now realizing that perhaps her life as she knew it was gone. “Just…” Chloe fumbled for words, her brain a deck of cards that had become scattered into a hurricane. “Take me home, Steph, have I got a story for you.”

\--

The bus was a refurbished school model that much hadn’t changed. The amber glow of the light dimly illuminating the bus’s scant passengers as the sun fled the sky. Steph sat with Chloe’s hand tightly gripped in her own, backpack slung, almost forgotten over her shoulder. Near the front of the bus, some boy neither of them had met hunched over a novel, trying to read by penlight. The gentle screech of hydraulic brakes sounded as the bus stopped, the crimson of the stoplight reflecting off the Bus driver’s glasses. 

Chloe had tried several times to begin her utterly mad rendition of the past subjective few years of her life, but the words had simply not come. They sat together in silence, Chloe not entirely uncomfortable with the heat of the other girl warming her side. Once she had tried to put her arm around Steph, like she’d done with Max once upon a time. Steph had blinked, looked at her, blinked again, “Yeah, okay I guess. That was never your thing before, Chlo.” Chloe remained mute.


	2. Faultlines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lost along the trail to the end of it all

Chapter 2 Scintillating pieces of a forgotten memory

The dream continued, Chloe allowing herself to be led through a house she didn’t remember. Portraits of her family – whole and unbroken. Her father’s smiling face reflecting off every wall, and piercing her memory like a dagger. Steph clearly knew the way to her bedroom and Chloe didn’t let herself think too deeply on what _that_ meant. Her body _felt_ the same, surface differences and attire aside. 

“Steph..” The girl blinked, staring unreservedly into Chloe’s eyes. “What babe, your parents are out, remember?” Chloe didn’t respond, simply blinking once again. 

Her room was that of a stranger. Posters of unfamiliar bands, and photos of friends she didn’t have adorned the familiar geometry of her soul. Her bed was neatly made and items put away in a fashion Chloe would’ve mocked in anyone else. The curtains rested ajar, the room lit by the single street lamp outside, the sun long having dipped out of sight. A familiar camera hung by its strap above her desk, complete with framed portraits of nature. “ _Max would’ve appreciated this._ ” Chloe thought dismally, “ _Wherever she is._ ”

Steph was staring at her, confusion and concern warring with the familiar sight of a girl who knows what she wants. Chloe had been that girl in another life. She still was, inside, but she felt so vulnerable in this stranger’s body, this temple to another person. Her knees gave out and she was sitting on her bed, the perfection of the comforter marred by her weight and soon after that of Steph as well. Crinkles in the pale blue blanket, radiating outwards like scars in the fabric of a whole. 

Chloe shuddered.

Steph’s arms were around her and Chloe finally began to talk, berating herself internally for this _vulnerability,_ this complete relaxation of the barriers that had protected her since her father died. She talked and Steph listened. Nothing made sense and it was clear the other girl didn’t understand but Chloe couldn’t have stopped and the dam broke loose. 

She described Max and Rachel; of losing her father and the years that followed. Of her death and resurrection at the hands of Max Caufield, a friend returned. She described the time travel that had so astounded her and then she stopped. Memories that had been bleeding from her stopped up and coagulated, their form shriveling to dust. The memory of what dwelt there, at the center of it all caused her to break out in gooseflesh once more. She remembered the blackness, the pursuant creatures of formless malice and infinite patience – their long legs piercing the fabric of a thousand dying worlds. 

Chloe stopped and Steph simply sat there with her, the darkness a balm instead of a pressure upon her. She finally explained waking up in the audience, the roar of laughter about her and the spotlights upon the stage and stopped once again because there was nothing left to tell. 

Steph didn’t say anything, perhaps because even a teenager who has yet to grasp the shape of things can understand importance when it is conveyed. Perhaps there is an openness; a reluctance to ridicule that differentiates them from the adults they gradually form into. Their shape is more malleable, more porous before they harden and crystallize into the adults that sleepwalk through the rest of their days. 

Chloe lets herself be guided to the bed; her knees tucked into her chest. She feels Steph wrap herself about her from behind and simply lies there, sleeping with her eyes open. It is long past midnight when her soft breathing evaporates into the distant lands of dreams, their peaks rising high above the shores of consciousness to crash down into the infinite black below. 

She dreams of butterflies.

\--

Morning breaks, the clouds parting to reveal a resplendent sunrise above the waters of the Bay. Chloe wakes before Steph, her phone suffused with messages from people she doesn’t know. Setting her phone aside, Chloe gently untangles herself from Steph, noticing the other girl smells of lilacs and clean fabric. Chloe walks to the window, her head going light as she stretches and writhes away the kinks of sleep. 

Part of her wishes to never wake from this dream of a happy life. The pretty girl asleep in her bed, the comfortable smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen. She knows herself too well and she knows she’d let it all go just to be lost in this moment forever. Yet she remembers Max, she remembers the look of absolute, pure horror that had spread itself across her face before she embraced apotheosis. More than anything, she remembers Max, in her room that day, sparkling eyes taunting and mysterious. She remembers the feel of their lips meeting, the gentlest of brushes before she snatched them away, a hidden smile lifting her mouth. 

Steph mumbles somewhere between sleep and waking, her hair falling over her face in a way Chloe finds cute. She thought it odd, but she never was one for the quirky girl; never really felt anything aside from a momentary passion that withered into nothing. Yet, she can’t help herself but feel thankful, to be oddly _attached_ to the girl. She crosses the room once more and gently runs her hand along the other girl’s soft jaw, tracing a small nose and the wide angle of her neck. Steph wakes slowly, dreamily, forgetting herself and reaching out to kiss Chloe before memory dawns and she freezes, embarrassed. This is not her Chloe. Not anymore.

Chloe stares at her for a moment longer then turns away, “We need to move, I don’t think we have much time.” Her voice is unintentionally hard, forged iron hissing in water. Steph is lost, “Chloe it’s the weekend, where do you want to go?” For Chloe that’s an excellent question. She doesn’t know this world, doesn’t know these people. All she knows is Max needs her; somewhere infinitely approaching the end of the line is a mousy, brown haired girl, whom Chloe was in love with once upon a time. “The lighthouse.” She replied, and that was that.

It was much the same as the other day when Max and her sat before that glorious sunset. When everything seemed to improve just a little and Chloe felt just for once, that maybe life was worth living. The same sense of timelessness that pervaded every inch of the place left a hollow feeling in her stomach. Steph clung tightly to Chloe’s hand not asking questions just supporting her. Chloe appreciated that. 

A thousand things Chloe felt like saying and a thousand more she couldn’t put to words. “Thanks.” She settled on simplicity and the squeeze Steph gave her hand was reassurance enough. Chloe’s fingers itched for cigarettes she’d never smoked and her head was filled with a buzzing that seemed foreign to this body. An odd euphoria claimed her and she raised her face to the heavens, their cloudy expanse never before seeming so beautiful. The wind whispered through her hair, sending lengths of it whipping around her head; the halo of the prideful angel brought low. 

Steph whispers, her voice the call of a baby bird, “What now, Chlo?” Chloe doesn’t know; she’s _never_ known. Only that this place was significant to Max, for reasons that swim the waters far above Chloe’s understanding. She’s about to tell Steph as much when something twists her stomach into knots, and Steph’s gasp tells Chloe she feels it too. Sheet lightning the color of scarlet blood ripples across the sky, tearing the heavens asunder and _not stopping._ Weltering cracks mar the blue expanse before them and Steph cries out, her hand almost painful in Chloe’s own. 

There is no sound to accompany this apocalypse. The calls of the birds, Steph’s whimpering seems to fade and leech from the world like so much water down the drain. Chloe _knows_ somehow that this world too is dying. Just as before, something is coming and she is powerless to stop it. She sees unknowable things slipping through the spiderweb of cracks in the geometry of the world. Chloe feels such terror as she has only felt once. An abject denial of what is before her, yet where once only grief lay masked, now only horror remains. 

Chloe listens, hearing above the silent swan song of infinity Steph’s shrill voice, high and panicked against the invisible howl of the primordial wind. “There’s something over _there!_ ” Chloe follows the desperate pointing of a finger with her eyes and sees the outline of some god. A human form, wreathed in the golden flames of the sun, unbearably bright to look at, yet undeniably the silhouette of Max. Chloe would recognize it anywhere and despite the pain, despite the confusion she runs to her, towing Steph alongside like so much flotsam. 

The figure speaks, their voice cutting across everything that ever was. + **You told me once that we’d be together forever.** \+ Steph cries out, cringing away and shielding her face from whatever it is that speaks out, their voice rippling through the air on wings of fire. + **I have seen what lies in eternity. I have seen what comes next** \+ The head turns, Chloe _feels_ those eyes upon her, peering through her soul. + **A girl is not worth the sum total of creation.** +

Chloe knows there are tears welling behind her eyes, although whether from the great heat or from the creature’s words she doesn’t know. She feels things getting ever closer as the walls around this world begin to crumble down. At the last moment, a new voice asserts itself, this one _undeniably_ Max, though a Max who bears the weight of _every_ world. “ _Chloe. You should have left me. It’s better this way, just let it end._ ” 

Chloe clenches the one fist not holding onto the other girl for dear life, staring with furious intent into the face of the divine. “I refuse to lie down and die, Max. I refuse and so should you!” She holds that stare for as long as humanely possible before the pain of the heat against her face forces her to turn away. When she looks up, the creature faces away from her, its gaze ranging out over the eddying squalls of the ocean. 

+ **So be it.** \+ 

Then the world screams and Chloe screams along with it as the iridescent thing of flame clenches its right hand and the world burns around them.


	3. Displacement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever tried to grasp something only for it to float in between your fingers?

Chapter 3 to be wrought asunder; farewells _in absentia_

She awoke to the smell of lilacs and linen, alone by the sea. The methodical wash of the waves on the beach drenched her subconsciousness and lulled her into half dreams of places she had never been.

Someone stood over her, the shadow of their passing obscuring what faint warmth leeched from the sky and cooled the sand on which her head rested.

Chloe opened her eyes.

_You’re alive. I wasn’t sure this new body would take._

The voice was flat, like listening to the humming of a transmission line form sentences. Chloe looked up, “Max, is that you?” She had no reason to suspect, but somewhere in the fires of her memory she suspected.

_Yes._

Words cohered around around her like insects off a corpse. “Where are we, Max?”

There was a humming, almost amusement if one removed any sincerity.

_Where else? The universe conspires that I should never leave Arcadia Bay again and you demand that I continue living. So here we are._

There is irritation there, a dull sort of disgust with life, the world in general. Chloe struggles to her feet rather than reply, her knees like some child’s play doh gone crusty when left in the sun. They are standing on the beach outside of town, the rolling of the surf a cool, calm against her fevered psyche. The creature next to her – no, _Max_ _–_ coughs dryly,

_Y_ _ou’ve been unconscious for approximately seven weeks._ _I cannot relate enough to the life I once_ _led_ _to tell you if this is significant._ _However, for reasons I do not know the town of Arcadia Bay has been sufficiently depopulated of mortal life._

“Jesus fuck, _mortal life?_ What are you that you can just dismiss people like that, Max? What the fuck happened to you? _”_ Chloe’s voice shed its’ croaking and began to gather strength as she went on, “Where did you go when you left that time, _what happened_ _to_ _Steph?_ ”

Her words found empty air as whatever the creature was, the discoloration, the oil-smear before her had evaporated into mist.

_Apotheosis._ She shivered at the word, even if she didn’t full grasp its’ meaning.

_Y ou will learn in time. Even now they pursue, seeping around the gaps in this Universe; seeking to obliterate me._

Chloe blinked; she was standing in Arcadia now, across from the old diner. No voice no presence did she sense anymore and the streets were deserted except for the odd piece of trash blowing in the gusting wind of the sea. Chloe sat on the curb, grunting “Fuck.”

It was a solid ten minutes before she heard the sound of engines. The rumbling of a motorcade thoroughly outclassed anything she’d driven herself and it sounded like a motorized fleet of elephants was making its way down the hill to meet her.

To her surprise what appeared to be several military vehicles driving in sequence appeared on the main street, their colors bedecked in forest camouflage. _The kind of day I’ve had.._ Chloe thought to herself wryly. So it was with the utmost disinterest that she leaned back against the concrete and stared down the leading vehicle as it drove up and parked just five feet from her crossed heels.

It was then that she realized she was wearing the goofiest fucking dress she’d ever seen; something she’d never be caught dead _owning_ , let alone wearing. Too late for modesty however so she squinted her eyes and tried her damndest to look as intimidating as a teenage girl no taller than five foot seven can accomplish.

The door cracked open, revealing first a man in pressed fatigues, his hair a dusting of gray salt and pepper. He opened the door for a man in slacks with his shirtsleeves drawn up to his forearms. Neither had nametags, so Chloe simply went with Asshole 1 and 2.

Asshole 1, the army man spoke first: “Ma’am, if I may-” he cleared his throat, “Who are you and what are you doing here? Arcadia Bay has been declared off limits by the Ministry of the Interior.”

Chloe gave her best fuck-off expression, “Fuck you, asshole I live here. What’s your excuse?”

_Always had problems with authority._ The ghost of Max’s ethereal whisper temporarily threw off her game and almost made her miss what Asshole 2 said, “ Miss,-- ” he tried smiling, “ _Nobody_ lives in Arcadia Bay. Not since -” He broke off, pressing a finger to his ear, “you’re sure? It’s her? Shit.”

He was clearly talking shit about her. “Of _course_ it’s me, Asshole; who else did you think it would be?”

His expression was not amused. “Ma’am, we’re tracking a level eight Disruption and we need to get you to safety so the rest of the Colonel’s men--” here he gestured to Asshole 1, “Can sweep the place and make sure nothing crossed over. Do you know what emergency dictate #1117 grants me the power to do?”

Chloe was curious, she quieted somewhat, “What?”

“This. Colonel, detain this woman and take her to refugee processing.” Asshole 1 nodded, gesturing to two similarly dressed sub-assholes who stepped from their humvees and stepped toward her.

_S hit_ Chloe thought, “Wait! I’m all-powerful, I have seen the fires at the end of the universe! Beware my deadly touch!” The men were not amused and grasped her by her elbows, which, she realized were practically malnourished. Sure, she’d never been a body builder, but she had almost no mass on her frame. As she was dragged unceremoniously towards the rear vehicle she cursed,

“Worth a fucking try right?”

Max wisely didn’t answer.


	4. All burned up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What, you think I had a plan?

The dawn of the next day arrived with MRE rations, carefully delivered and the scent of sterile foam mattresses. Chloe had been dropped off and cared for; allowed to shower and provided with clean clothing (not that fucking dress) before being led to the _school_ of all places where she waited for them to remember she existed. 

When the call to interrogation finally arrived, Chloe was almost relieved to exit the empty class room and be led to, irony of ironys the old principle's office; long since abandoned and recommissioned into an office space for whatever men in black shit this ended up being. She saw maybe three people without uniforms on her way there and they all kept their eyes down; either busy or pointedly avoiding her inquisitive gaze. _Fuck it then_ she thought, _hope you fuckers know what you're asking for. There's only one Chloe Price and she's got a god watching over her shoulder._

_**I'm not a God**._

She jumped, jostling the soldier on her right and making him look at her with an annoyed expression across his thin face. She was too surprised to care, _Fucking Max, you couldn't warn me you could read my thoughts?_

The Max voice continued as if she'd not spoken,

**The city on the hill; life after death; it's all gone, _it's all empty_. The throne lies barren and I stand alone before the crux of it all and the void looms up to swallow me. Tell me, Chloe: **

**Have you ever seen Infinity?**

Black spots swam before Chloe's eyes and she blinked until they dissolved in sunlight. There was a distortion lying upon the face of the world. Soldiers stared at her with eyes agape; a man in a baseball cap screamed into a radio. Little rents of light tore themselves into the fabric of the world and Chloe distantly wondered if it was happening again. Static faded in and out of all her senses, the approximation of the unknowable brushed up against her and Chloe would have cried out in terror but her mouth had been hijacked. 

Phantom words shattered and reformed her, the mad ramblings of an insane girl thrust into godhood she didn't ask for. Laughter, manic sobbing and everything in-between the emotional dichotomy thundered around her and Chloe thought she could smell lilacs. Finally it seemed to slow before finally rolling to a stop and Chloe took as deep a breath as she'd ever taken; bruised lungs, scarred by cigarette smoke giving her the sweet fragrance of life.

Sound. Fury. Relief the color of cool water on a Spring morning falling about her shoulders. The sound in the room seemed to rise up around her like the tide and she gasped in a breath through lips that tingled with a phantom numbness. The man in the baseball cap was panting for breath, a complicated-looking, electronic device in his hand pulsing out waves of _something._ Reality solidified into a bubble of the real and Chloe once again felt her feet upon the ground.

Finally, one of the soldiers, a boyish looking man with a wisp of facial hair covering pockmarks that had scarred said, "Sir, what the _fuck_ was that?"

Baseball cap, the same one who had been ordering the Colonel around waited a moment before replying: "She's an Event; literally, all of her is an Event, corporal. What in the.. Never mind; take her to the office as planned but for god's sake keep a Hawking device within four feet of her at _all times --_ am I clear?"

"Sir!" The two soldiers, service insignia inscrutable to Chloe saluted with the perfunctory grace every long term enlisted accumulates. Once more, albeit more forcefully, they directed her into a small room where a series of chairs sat in front of the truly ostentatious desk of one Principle Wells.

\--

She could feel when someone entered, carrying another of the so-called Hawking devices. The air thrummed like a live-wire of electricity caged and she squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. 

"Does that hurt you?"

The voice was inquisitive and not, altogether unkind.

Chloe, facing the desk still, closed her eyes and kneaded her temples with thin fingers like spider's legs.

"It feels that screech that happens when your fork hits those plates made out of ceramic? Shit I dunno, but it's not fun, that's for sure."

There was a second's pause before the voice said thoughtfully, "Interesting. Do you know what a Hawking device _is_ miss Price? " 

Chloe jumped at the sound of her name. "How the fuck do you know who I am?"

The voice laughed at that, "Even if I weren't working for the government, you were never exactly easy to miss, Chloe. Although I'm certainly not surprised you don't remember me, even if we were never friends -- It's been a long time since Blackwell, hasn't it."

Then that geeky shit Warren stepped around the edge of the desk and into her still sensitive vision, the graying hair on his temples and the lines on his face throwing Chloe's world into a panicked confusion as bottomless as the sea. 

"Warren, what the fuck.. What happened to you?"

Although she rarely had spoken five words to the annoying boy, she'd always had a thing for faces. This was definitely Warren and yet it couldn't be -- This man had raced past what Chloe considered "Old-as-fuck" and was approaching something resembling wizened. He had to be at least fifty, if he was a day.

"Life happened I guess; I can't say I'm not disappointed by it all, but who isn't? I think the more pertinent question, however, is what happened to _you_ miss Price. Yes, what in God's name happened to you?"


End file.
